In typical industrial facility designs, the method for routing electrical power and fiber optic data cables to the field instrumentation is through separate, and independently installed, power and data distribution systems. In facilities with hazardous environments this involves very long individual runs of power cable from the non-hazardous area of the facility to the hazardous areas, as well as very long individual runs of optical fiber cable from the non-hazardous area of the facility to the hazardous areas. Many times these runs are through buried trenches or through conduit systems making these individual runs of cabling expensive and time-consuming to install. Costs for a typical facility can easily run into several million dollars.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide power cable and optical fiber cable to a hazardous location more efficiently, with reduced complexity and installation costs.